The best generation to be a wrestling fan?

[NoCalMike 0]

I got to thinking. If you are about 25-35 now, then when Hogan ruled the world you were a kid, when ECW/Attitude Era/nWo came along we were teenagers or late teen/early 20's and then we all witnessed D-Day when ECW and WCW went bye-bye.

 

It seems this generation happened to be the right age for a lot of the right events. I mean, I know not only teens/early 20's watch ECW and Attitude Era but hey those entities were speaking to THAT audience, and WE happened to be that age at that time.

 

 

I know we have put up with a lot of bullshit over the years, especially lately, but it also seems our age group has been the right age at the right time for a lot of big moments in Pro-Wrestling.

[Guest Coffey]

I'd say if you're a seasonal, casual wrestling fan, that really only pays attention during the "boom" periods, being around twenty-five years old is the right age. You, as you said, were a kid during Hogan in the 80's WWF and a teenager during Austin in WWF in the 90's.

 

If you're a hardcore fan, I don't know.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

I'm 22 now and I've been watching since I was about 6 or 7 years old and I'd probably say that I've gotten the best out of pro wrestling because I lived through a lot of eras. Started up as a Hulkamanic, progressed into the Bret Hart fandom and worked up into the Attitude era. It was during the Attitude era that I began branching out into other aspects of pro wrestling, mainly AJPW, NJPW and ECW. I can't say I was a fan of any of those promotions during their peak but I began to love it right after a lot of the big moments had went down so I wasn't too late to the party.

 

The current generation of wrestling fans (6-16) are going to have by far the shittiest time growing up with the sport due to the stagnent situation american pro wrestling has found itself in.

[Guest Coffey]

Which doesn't say a lot about future wrestlers. I mean, imagine wrestlers down the road that grew up idolizing John Cena? *shivers*

[Lord of The Curry 0]

It'd be weird talking to young fans and hearing them talk about who their favourite sports entertainer is. Thank God I avoid young people and definetly young wrestling fans at all costs.

 

The only person I actively talk about wrestling with besides Rudo is the mentally challenged 30 year old that hangs around my plaza at work. That dude loves him some JBL.

[Maztinho 0]

At 26 years old. I think that we are the best generation for what's gone down. We know why Ric Flair is a legend, and what the big deal about Hogan turning heel was about.

 

I can't really complain that much about what I've seen in wrestling, just lament the fact that the future looks really bleak.

 

LOTC is right. This new wave of fan is screwed.

[k thx 0]

pwtorrents and yutube etc makes it a very good time to be a fan. Wrestling of any type is available to you, you have years of history (but not distant, unrecognisable history) and the future is going to be interesting.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

MMA is going to make the process more difficult for pro wrestling in the future as it has all but completely cornered what was once the WWE's most coveted demographic, males 18-34. A lot of old-school fans are smack dab in the middle of this and people are beggining to realize that there are other options.

[Guest Coffey]

It'd be weird talking to young fans and hearing them talk about who their favourite sports entertainer is. Thank God I avoid young people and definetly young wrestling fans at all costs.

 

Did you ever see the CM Punk & Colt Cabana shoot? It's a lot like that. They were in wrestling school together and talking about their favorite wrestlers growing up and all the students were naming, like, Austin, Rock, etc. Attitude Era people. It was obvious they were only there because wrestling was a hot, current trend.

 

If that's a trend that's going to stick, the wrestling future looks bleak. Future wrestlers molding themselves after Batista, Cena & Orton? Hopefully there's a lot of Benoit, Angle & HHH fans, I guess.

 

Where's the superstar charisma going to come from though?

[tominator89 0]

It was nice being able to experience Hogan's run as a kid and then have my wrestling experience culiminate with the Monday Night Wars.

[Guest Princess Leena]

I'm 22. I didn't realize what I was watching until just about before the nWo days. I think I missed a lot before that. Watching old tapes and such from the late 80s/early 90s... wrestling was so much different back then. I wish I was watching more in those more innocent days.

[Guest wildpegasus]

MMA is going to make the process more difficult for pro wrestling in the future as it has all but completely cornered what was once the WWE's most coveted demographic, males 18-34. A lot of old-school fans are smack dab in the middle of this and people are beggining to realize that there are other options.

 

But, but but......... what about ROH???????????? Fans got it made better now than we ever did. I'm telling ya. ROH will save us.

[NoCalMike 0]

MMA is going to make the process more difficult for pro wrestling in the future as it has all but completely cornered what was once the WWE's most coveted demographic, males 18-34. A lot of old-school fans are smack dab in the middle of this and people are beggining to realize that there are other options.

 

But, but but......... what about ROH???????????? Fans got it made better now than we ever did. I'm telling ya.

 

 

Well yeah maybe the .05% of all wrestling fans have it better, but fans in general.

[Black Lushus 0]

I'm not so sure you can break it up by generations AS A WHOLE but more or less individual years in certain "eras" or break it down even further to individual stars...well I can't, anyway. From strictly a WWE perspective as that's what I watched the most:

 

Pre-Hogan era(up to 84)-had some good points, but the style was too slow and plodding...I find it hard to go back and watch stuff on WWE 24/7 without fast forwarding through it.

 

Hogan Era (84-91)-this was what I grew up on...I was a Hulkamaniac for awhile, I admit it...loved Warrior, Savage, Rude, Perfect, DiBiase, Bulldogs, Hart Foundation, Demolition among others...but without monthly PPVs, when you look back on it, man there was a LOT of crap during this era.

 

pre-Attitude 91-96-pretty stagnant times for the WWE with hot spots from Flair, UT, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels and potential stars Owen Hart, Mick Foley, Steve Austin and Ahmed Johnson. Ahmed could have been huge but started having his problems in 96...Vader could have been huge for the WWF (already establishing himself in WCW) but they fucked that all up...They never really did much with Owen beyond the IC belt and was pretty much on his way down the card when he died...92 was my second all-time favorite WWE year.

 

Monday Night Wars/Attitude Era 97-01-other than Rock, Austin, Angle, UT, HHH, Foley, and others (basically the ME and Jericho and Benoit), there wasn't a whole lot going on in the mid and undercard. 97 was my all-time favorite WWE year.

 

Today's era-02-present-02 thru early 04 is a total blur to me as the end of WCW and HHH's dominance made for some crappy WWE product, but I've been alright with how things have been going from WM20 on...sure there have been set backs here and there, lots of stupidity, but the current product is good enough. 05 may be my 3rd favorite WWE year.

[Mole 0]

My Dad will tell you the best times were in the 50s when wrestling first hit television.

[Guest wildpegasus]

MMA is going to make the process more difficult for pro wrestling in the future as it has all but completely cornered what was once the WWE's most coveted demographic, males 18-34. A lot of old-school fans are smack dab in the middle of this and people are beggining to realize that there are other options.

 

But, but but......... what about ROH???????????? Fans got it made better now than we ever did. I'm telling ya.

 

 

Well yeah maybe the .05% of all wrestling fans have it better, but fans in general.

 

 

ROH!! They have at least 5 matches per card that smoke anything else anyone else has ever done before. It's only a matter of time buddy. Once they keep on getting more popular with their superior wrestling than they will be for the fans in general and not just .05% of the population. Than it'll be case closed. This generation will have it better than any other generation. Bar none. It's not even debatable.

[NoCalMike 0]

I'm not so sure you can break it up by generations AS A WHOLE but more or less individual years in certain "eras" or break it down even further to individual stars...well I can't, anyway. From strictly a WWE perspective as that's what I watched the most:

 

Pre-Hogan era(up to 84)-had some good points, but the style was too slow and plodding...I find it hard to go back and watch stuff on WWE 24/7 without fast forwarding through it.

 

Hogan Era (84-91)-this was what I grew up on...I was a Hulkamaniac for awhile, I admit it...loved Warrior, Savage, Rude, Perfect, DiBiase, Bulldogs, Hart Foundation, Demolition among others...but without monthly PPVs, when you look back on it, man there was a LOT of crap during this era.

 

pre-Attitude 91-96-pretty stagnant times for the WWE with hot spots from Flair, UT, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels and potential stars Owen Hart, Mick Foley, Steve Austin and Ahmed Johnson. Ahmed could have been huge but started having his problems in 96...Vader could have been huge for the WWF (already establishing himself in WCW) but they fucked that all up...They never really did much with Owen beyond the IC belt and was pretty much on his way down the card when he died...92 was my second all-time favorite WWE year.

 

Monday Night Wars/Attitude Era 97-01-other than Rock, Austin, Angle, UT, HHH, Foley, and others (basically the ME and Jericho and Benoit), there wasn't a whole lot going on in the mid and undercard. 97 was my all-time favorite WWE year.

 

Today's era-02-present-02 thru early 04 is a total blur to me as the end of WCW and HHH's dominance made for some crappy WWE product, but I've been alright with how things have been going from WM20 on...sure there have been set backs here and there, lots of stupidity, but the current product is good enough. 05 may be my 3rd favorite WWE year.

 

 

Well what I think I mean to say is that overall, if you are in the age group I stated on the thread topic opener, it seems that a lot of the era's happened to hit us at the right time, when we were the right age.

 

Example: As a Middle-Teen/Late Teen, I was being shown The Attitude Era, the nWo, and ECW. Now compare that to those were were teens in the early 90's - Crush, Clowns, Mantaur, Vikings, Jobber matches, WCW Saturday Night as a #1 show etc etc.....Now of course there were always Diamonds in the Rough from every era that you can appreciate, I am just saying that I think OUR age group had the benefit of having the right stuff marketed to us at the right time, and it seems OUR generation has had the most influence, or demanded the most change in Professional Wrestling.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

It depends on where you live(d). Wrestling is made for live audiences, not audiences on TV, so any period where you got good monthly or even weekly wrestling is probably the best time. With the WWE, unless you lived in a major market, you'd be luckly to get live wrestling once a year or two, and even then, it's harder to enjoy the shows in big arenas than it is in smaller venues.

 

For most of us, we've grown up in this sorta self-aware period of wrestling where if a wrestler says "I'm going to kick your ass!" you sorta chuckle, whereas in past generations those wrestlers were legit feared and hated and loved, rather than what we have today where there is this distance between the two. With that said, and I know I'm going to get some rolled eyes and "here he goes again" with this, but with the expansion and development of MMA, I get alot of what I want in wrestling, and what used to be in wrestling, which is where that distance, that self-awareness, is gone, because it's real. When a fighter says "I'm going to kick your ass" you better be afuckingfraid.

 

I think todays fan has more options in one way, in regards to internet and tape buying, but on the other hand, that fan doesn't go to the live shows and actually get to feel what they are watching.

[Mole 0]

I wish I could still watch wrestling not knowing what was going to happen. When the Monday Night Wars were going on, I was glued to the TV set every Monday. I was flipping back and fourth between the two the whole night.

 

A few months ago, I found a tape that had Raw and Nitro on it. It was the night after SS 98, when the Rock became the Corp champ, blah blah blah. It was interesting to see how I watched wrestling back then because I was more interested in the Rock stuff than seeing the cruiserweight match that opposed it.

 

We are pretty lucky though.

[humanoid92 0]

I can relate to what NoCal Mike was saying in the original post. At the time of each Wrestlemania, I'm always the same age as the show, meaning I was 10 when WM X went down, 11 on the day of WM 11, etc. And I've always thought I was pretty much the perfect age to be a fan.

 

When Bret left for awhile after WM 12 and I turned 13, I kind of started to fall out of wrestling a little bit because my favorite guy was gone and I was growing up anyway. But then what does the WWF do? Usher in the Attitude era. So by the time I was 14 or 15, wrestling was "cool" again and had a more adult feel to it. It almost felt like the WWF was growing up with me. That also coincided with me finally getting the internet and discovering the behind the scenes aspect of the industry that I had always known existed.

 

Then when I was 16-17, it was the best of both worlds. Wrestling was still pretty popular and once Russo left, and Benoit, Jericho, Angle, etc. showed up, the workrate shot through the roof. I loved that era.

 

Then the wrestling trends followed me once again. When I went to college, I could keep up with it online to an extent, but I wasn't about to watch it on TV a lot and I couldn't order PPVs even if I wanted to. The WWF complied with me by taking a sharp decline. I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything because, well, a lot of it was crap.

 

By this point, fans my age have seen it all, and it's ingrained enough in pop culture that we can joke about the cliches and reminsce about the glory days all we want, but we don't feel compelled to still actually watch it. And since we're adults now, maybe that's how it should be.

 

So by that logic, I've always thought fans born in the 1981-1984 range hit the jackpot.

 

-----

 

Things will never be the same again. What's "good" and what's not is always subjective, but I just don't see how anyone born after 1993 will ever have nearly as fun as a wrestling fan experience as us. The business, as it was, is dead.

 

On a somewhat related note, and I've mentioned something along these lines before, it's mind boggling to me that the WWE is now been stagnant for an unheard of period of time, and no one seems to really notice or care.

 

Compare how different the rosters, production, format, style, angles, company as a whole, etc. from 1987 were from 1984. From 1990 to 1993. From 1992 to 1995. From 1995 to 1998. From 1997 to 2000. A whole lot of turnover there, right? Compare any of those years to the other one and it's night and day. Well, compare 2002 to 2005 or 2003 to 2006. What exactly is different??? Nothing... they've never stagnated to this extent before and there's really no sign that anything's changing.

[Toxxic 0]

I'm with the ROH crowd here. With the possible exceptions of some of the Marafuji/KENTA/Suzuki etc matches from NOAH, ROH has probably the best matches I've ever seen. And they churn them out regularly as well.

[Danville_Wrestling 0]

I'm 19 and I remember around 1995-1996 when I had TONS of wrestling on my TV on Saturday. In the morning there was WCW Pro Wrestling at 9:05, WWF Livewire at 10, Smokey Mountain Wrestling at 3, USWA at 4, then WCW Saturday Night from 6:05-8:05, sometimes WWF Superstars at 11, and ECW at 2 AM. Then on Sunday you had the Action Zone at noon. I loved all the wrestling I got to see then as a kid and is depressing now when I have nothing to watch on weekends except a TNA re-run or OVW.

 

I'd say my golden age was the Attitude Era just b/c I had become a fan pre-WM 11 in early 1995.

[Guest wildpegasus]

I'm with the ROH crowd here. With the possible exceptions of some of the Marafuji/KENTA/Suzuki etc matches from NOAH, ROH has probably the best matches I've ever seen. And they churn them out regularly as well.

 

I better clarify myself here. I was being sarcastic about ROH. On the other side of the coin, I "don't mind" them either.

[Guest wildpegasus]

I'm not so sure you can break it up by generations AS A WHOLE but more or less individual years in certain "eras" or break it down even further to individual stars...well I can't, anyway. From strictly a WWE perspective as that's what I watched the most:

 

Pre-Hogan era(up to 84)-had some good points, but the style was too slow and plodding...I find it hard to go back and watch stuff on WWE 24/7 without fast forwarding through it.

 

Hogan Era (84-91)-this was what I grew up on...I was a Hulkamaniac for awhile, I admit it...loved Warrior, Savage, Rude, Perfect, DiBiase, Bulldogs, Hart Foundation, Demolition among others...but without monthly PPVs, when you look back on it, man there was a LOT of crap during this era.

 

pre-Attitude 91-96-pretty stagnant times for the WWE with hot spots from Flair, UT, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels and potential stars Owen Hart, Mick Foley, Steve Austin and Ahmed Johnson. Ahmed could have been huge but started having his problems in 96...Vader could have been huge for the WWF (already establishing himself in WCW) but they fucked that all up...They never really did much with Owen beyond the IC belt and was pretty much on his way down the card when he died...92 was my second all-time favorite WWE year.

 

Monday Night Wars/Attitude Era 97-01-other than Rock, Austin, Angle, UT, HHH, Foley, and others (basically the ME and Jericho and Benoit), there wasn't a whole lot going on in the mid and undercard. 97 was my all-time favorite WWE year.

 

Today's era-02-present-02 thru early 04 is a total blur to me as the end of WCW and HHH's dominance made for some crappy WWE product, but I've been alright with how things have been going from WM20 on...sure there have been set backs here and there, lots of stupidity, but the current product is good enough. 05 may be my 3rd favorite WWE year.

 

 

Well what I think I mean to say is that overall, if you are in the age group I stated on the thread topic opener, it seems that a lot of the era's happened to hit us at the right time, when we were the right age.

 

Example: As a Middle-Teen/Late Teen, I was being shown The Attitude Era, the nWo, and ECW. Now compare that to those were were teens in the early 90's - Crush, Clowns, Mantaur, Vikings, Jobber matches, WCW Saturday Night as a #1 show etc etc.....Now of course there were always Diamonds in the Rough from every era that you can appreciate, I am just saying that I think OUR age group had the benefit of having the right stuff marketed to us at the right time, and it seems OUR generation has had the most influence, or demanded the most change in Professional Wrestling.

 

Why do you have WCWSN from the early 90s as a #1 show a bad thing?

[ChrisMWaters 0]

Slightly off topic...

 

But trying to remember, what was the WCW show where Dusty Rhodes would always moo before the main event of the show?

[Downhome 0]

God, if I was a young kid right now and this was the product that we had to deal with, I doubt I'd be much of a wrestling fan at all. I have a nephew who is a big fan and he's 15 years old, but since I've been around to tell him who Flair is, tell him about ECW and WCW, and lend him tapes of all of the really good times it hasn't been as bad off for him, and he has a respect for the history of the business.

 

But for those kids who are just coming into it totally blind, and they start off by watching shit like Vince's ass on TV? I really feel sorry for em and don't blame them at all if they never become real fans and never give a crap about the history.

 

For all of you guys who are around 22+, would you honestly be watching this product today if you were an early tean or younger and this was your first look at wrestling?

 

It's hardly possible to even be a hardcore mark anymore as well, so that changes things a lot for the following generations of fans.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

For all of you guys who are around 22+, would you honestly be watching this product today if you were an early tean or younger and this was your first look at wrestling?

My first look at wrestling was an I.R.S. promo.

 

So...maybe.

[Downhome 0]

I know I've been known to make excuses for some of the shit that's on TV (not so much over the past year or so though, at least not like I used to), but I find it hard to understand how anyone could just up and start watching these shows, and become a huge fan of it. Much of the reason that some of us are still fans is because we've seen the highs, and we continue to watch waiting for the next upward swing in quality.

 

I started watching as soon as I was able to really watch TV back in the early 80's with the NWA, lived through the Hogan era with all of those highs along with the Horsemen era, then went through the lows of the early 90's, then again with the highs of a little ECW and the Monday night wars with Attitude and nWo, then again with the lows of the end of WCW, then the lows stuck around for a while. Hell, I don't know if we've really had another up period through and through. It's been more like we've had a few cool moments here and there, like Jericho becoming champ, Benoit becoming champ, Eddie, the rise and fall of Brock, etc...

 

The "magic" just isn't there right now. That died with WCW and ECW in 2001, and when Rocky and Austin finally left WWE for good it really died out even more. I mean, this generation's Austin and Rocky is Cena and Orton. Ya know...what the fuck?

 

The only two guys who have had even a hint of the old feeling, at least to me, have been Brock and Angle. Sure we still have a few guys from the old era, like HHH/HBK/Taker, but when they are in the ring with guys like Cena, Spirit Squad, and Khali, it really doesn't matter that they're still around.

[Hawk 34 0]

Isn't the more appros question "What is the best time to be a fan?" because it's really about the difference in how we viewed wrestling as a kid, teen and for alot of us, as adults. Not neccesarily, "generation". At least that is how the thread has gone.

 

In my mind, the best time was the territory era where you could develop a more serious connection to those workers. While you missed out on alot, I think fans were more passionate for their region because it belonged to them.

 

Wrestling doesn't have that, with the exception of ROH...there's no territory style promotions anymore here. ROH just recycles its roster like it was done back then, people from other areas would just come it and the fans would just fall in love with the new batch. While WWE keeps the same roster and just adds in generic and green names and they haven't gone anywhere. They might put a new person but the same cliche storylines are rehashed and often done with zero inspiration.

 

The booking was geared towards your region, whereas today it's an attempt to entertain a broad spectrum of people(namely McMahons).

 

Personally speaking, I enjoyed the early 90's the most. 1992 to be exact. I was just a young punk and I loved how everything slowly got more serious with the Flair/Savage stuff or the harder style with MVC and Steiners, Sting/Vader in WCW.

[humanoid92 0]

God, if I was a young kid right now and this was the product that we had to deal with, I doubt I'd be much of a wrestling fan at all. I have a nephew who is a big fan and he's 15 years old, but since I've been around to tell him who Flair is, tell him about ECW and WCW, and lend him tapes of all of the really good times it hasn't been as bad off for him, and he has a respect for the history of the business.

 

But for those kids who are just coming into it totally blind, and they start off by watching shit like Vince's ass on TV? I really feel sorry for em and don't blame them at all if they never become real fans and never give a crap about the history.

 

For all of you guys who are around 22+, would you honestly be watching this product today if you were an early tean or younger and this was your first look at wrestling?

 

It's hardly possible to even be a hardcore mark anymore as well, so that changes things a lot for the following generations of fans.

 

This is a very good point. Nowadays, there's no good way for a new fan to get caught up on the history of the business. You can read the internet or browse YouTube all you want, but none of it will make sense without any context. If a fan started watching in, say.... 1992, it would have been easy to catch up on the history of the business because all you had to do was go to the video store and rent all the old tapes. Remember, at that point there had only been 20 or so PPVs ever. You could teach yourself about the Hogan era just from renting most of the tapes at the video store and maybe happening upon a few old magazines that a buddy might have. But at this point it's impossible. There have been hundreds of PPVs, there are major angles on TV all the time, and it's impossible to find old tapes anywhere. Even to catch up on the last 2-3 years, you'd have to sift through, what, 30-50 PPVs? (That's in theory- with the oversaturated product of today most PPVs aren't even that important anymore.) I'm not saying that a fan today has to be 100% familiar with every detail that was going on in 1989, but the whole "developing a knowledge and respect for the business" thing is pretty much out the window.

 

Of course, this problem is compounded by the fact that the product is no longer an actual show, but rather a show that's ABOUT the product itself. So if you're a new fan and you don't know about Hogan, Flair, Foley, ECW, WCW, DX, the screwjob, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Kamala, etc. you're screwed. The show is now a tribute to what the business has been in the past. It's completely self-referential. So if you weren't around in the old days, you're lost right off the bat. Up until WCW died, and especially before the Monday night wars, things weren't like that at all. As soon as you were off WWF TV, you were automatically written out of history. It was much easier for a new fan to pick things up because the focus was always on the present day. Now it's the opposite. It's all about playing to their own history. They aren't trying to get new fans... they're just trying to keep the hardcore ones around and lure back people that may have been fans in the past. If I was a kid now, I really don't know that I'd ever take an interest in this stuff.